Runaway
by superwoman1015
Summary: Post Season 3 finale. Grace doesn't handle the situation at the cabin very well and disappears. The team tries to find her as she comes to a depression about her life.
1. Chapter 1

**Authors Note: **This was written for the Mentalist Big Bang over on LJ. Special thanks to miss peg for the cheerleading (and art, that can be found linked to on my journal) and sprl119 for the wonderful beta. Seriously, the woman is a miracle worker. This story is fully written, and I will post as I get a chance, there will be a total of 15 chapters.

**Runaway**

She watched as Craig dropped before her, too stunned to speak. How had this happened to her? How had she been so thoroughly fooled? She went to him, wanted to make sure that it was really happening. He pulled off her necklace, the one that he had given her, and the last little bit of her died inside.

She stood outside the cabin as cops came, watched them mill around. Was this what she looked like at a scene to the people who were in shock? To the victims? Like insects at a garbage dump, marking everything and ignoring everything at the same time.

She heard someone laugh and shuddered. How could someone laugh? Her fiancé, lie or not, was in the cabin on the floor, dead. Her boss, a woman she looked up to more than anything in the world was on her way to the hospital, gunshot wound to the shoulder, hopefully nothing lingering or fatal , and everyone else…

She knew someone should call Cho and Rigsby and Jane, but she couldn't make her hands reach for her phone, heavy in her pocket. She saw Hightower out of the corner of her eye, crouched down talking to her children; they at least would be ok.

She knew she should do something, talk to someone, she was going to have to give a statement to someone, tell about what she knew, about her relationship with Craig, if that was even his name. Would he be able to get a job with the FBI if that wasn't his name? Could working for Red John give you access to the power required to fake your identity so perfectly?

She knew they would ask her questions about what they had done together, how their relationship had progressed, why they had gotten engaged so quickly, why they were getting _married_ so quickly. And she would have to tell her parents. Tell them that her fiancé, the man that she loved, thought she loved, was in league with a serial killer.

And she couldn't do it.

She stepped off the porch and walked towards the gate, she didn't know where she was going, she just knew that she couldn't stay here. She walked out the gate, no one noticed her. Past the police car sitting in the driveway, surrounded with more insect like cops paying her no mind, scuttling around in the dirt that surrounded the cabin.

She turned up the road, heading in the opposite direction of town. She didn't want to run into anyone. She didn't know what lay in that direction, walking up the mountain, but she knew that it was the only way she could escape.


	2. Chapter 2

Teresa Lisbon was tired. Not her normal long day at the office and dealing with the pain in the ass she called her consultant sort of tired, but _bone_ tired. Her eyes didn't want to open; it was like they were taped shut. Her mouth was gritty as though she'd spent a week in the desert without fresh water. The pain came last to her recognition, a dull aching feeling that started in her shoulder and then reverberated through her whole body.

She knew something was wrong, she knew that there was something that she needed to remember. She thought about what had been going on, about Madeline and about her kids and Jane's harebrained plan to catch Red John that actually seemed like it was working…

And then it hit her, the cabin, Grace's fiancé, a gun fight and a ride in an ambulance. And then she wished that she was sleeping, that she wasn't waking up from what was probably surgery. She vaguely remembered a ride in an ambulance, doctors telling her that she they had to repair the damage to her shoulder. She didn't know where her team was, she didn't know where Jane was. Grace was going to be going through hell and she wasn't there to help her.

She heard the door to her room open and hoped that it was just a nurse coming to check to make sure she was alive still. The very un-nurse like shuffling of feet made her realize that it wasn't a nurse and the familiar smell told her that it was Rigsby and Cho. She didn't know if it was a good thing or not that both of them were here, that anyone was here at all.

Either they really did care about her or something was wrong. The silence that followed the click of the door shutting told her it was the latter. She didn't want to know. It was either Jane or Grace and she didn't think she could handle either.

The not talking that the two of them were doing was driving her crazy. She opened her eyes, blinked, opened them again. They were swimming in her vision; Cho had Rigsby's body, any other time she would have laughed. She tried to talk, but it just came out as a strangled noise.

Cho moved first, pouring her a glass of water from a pitcher that was on a tray next to her bed. She didn't know where it had come from, but she wasn't going to question it right now; she needed moisture in her mouth. She didn't drink much, just a small sip to remove the sandpaper from her tongue.

She waited a few minutes before she tried again. Rigsby looked uncomfortable, and kept sneaking looks at the door as if looking for an easy escape.

"Tell me." She didn't have the energy, or the voice for pleasantries. She just needed to know so they could start dealing with whatever mess was left over after this fiasco of Jane's.

When there was no immediate answer from Cho or Rigsby she gave them what she hoped was a menacing look that promised pain and suffering if she didn't get answers soon.

"Jane shot a man in cold blood in the middle of a shopping mall, and Grace walked off the scene at the cabin and hasn't been seen since."

Her blood ran cold. She wasn't sure why the heart monitor next to her hadn't pick up that her heart felt like it was going to break into a million pieces. There was a pain in her chest that she hadn't felt in ages, the pain that someone you love and care for is hurt, gone, and there is nothing you can do. "How long?"

"We haven't seen Grace since last night. Jane shot who he says is Red John the same time you were shot, or just about."

She closed her eyes, sinking back into the bed. She wanted to go back to sleep and never wake up. This was a nightmare. She didn't want to deal with this. She could guess why Grace had disappeared, she only hopped that the young woman hadn't done anything that she would regret. Not that walking away from a crime scene where it was revealed that your fiancé was working with a serial killer and had in all probability used you to get closer to the case was a good thing, but Lisbon could understand why she had done it.

"Jane?" She knew that Cho would understand the question, though she could see a look of confusion on Rigsby's face. He always was one step behind.

"In jail. He's not bothering to deny anything. Might be able to claim self-defense if the other guy had a gun on him, but there was no indication that he was threatening Jane at all. Insanity more likely."

She nodded and closed her eyes. She thought she was tired before, now she was _weary_. "Grace?" She almost whispered.

"Her cell is off, we can't trace it. No activity on her credit cards and, no ATM activity after about 10:00 last night. Cleared out her account near as we can tell. We haven't called her family yet, not sure what to say."

"I'll call." She knew that she should. She was the boss after all. If anyone was going to call Grace's family it should be her.

She didn't say anything else; just lay there, eyes closed, until she heard the door open and the men shuffling out.

She could feel tears pricking in her eyes. She wasn't sure if she was crying with grief for Grace or disappointment over Jane. She was sure only one of the two was worth crying over, but couldn't figure out which.


	3. Chapter 3

Grace stood in the street corner of a tiny town she didn't know the name of trying to think. She'd left in such a daze that she hardly remembered getting on the bus and coming here, wherever here was. She was still in California, but no longer anywhere she was familiar with. This wasn't one of the small towns that the team had gotten called to on a case…at least she didn't think so. She'd left her cell phone at one of the bus stations between where she'd gotten on and where she'd gotten off. She didn't want to be found. Not now.

The air was dry. She was still in the mountains; there were red woods around her. She could smell the dry dust that she had come to associate with these small mountain towns, especially in the summer. It wasn't what she was used to, but she didn't care. She was still in shock, still walking as if in a dream. She had killed the man she thought she loved. How could she live with that? How could she live knowing that she'd betrayed her team?

She hadn't eaten, not that she was hungry, but knew that she needed to eat something. Or at least, there was a voice in her head saying that it was important. The voice sounded oddly like her mother. Another person she'd let down. The voice told her to drink too. She wasn't sure the last time she'd done that either. There was a diner across the street from where she stood: a mom and pop style with café curtains and a sign proclaiming the best pie in the county.

As if on auto pilot she crossed the street. When she opened the door, a bell rang, causing her to startle at the unexpected, loud noise. She'd been alone with her thoughts for hours…or was it days? She was losing track. She stood in the restaurant—it wasn't as dim as she was expecting—and looked around. She didn't know where to sit, didn't know what to do.

"Just take a seat wherever, Hon, be with you in a moment." A plump woman said, coming from a doorway near a counter.

Grace didn't say anything, just slipped like a ghost her way to a table in a corner and picked up the menu on the table. She didn't read it. Her eyes were unfocused; she was staring and not seeing.

"Can I start you off with a drink, Hon?" She jumped a little at the voice. "Didn't mean to startle you. We've got Coke products."

Grace nodded, trying to look at the menu again, her eyes swimming. "Um…just water I think."

"Know what you want?"

"No, no not really." She knew she should eat, but at the moment the thought of food—of something warm and life-giving—was so foreign as to be incomprehensible.

"I recommend the meatloaf." When Grace didn't answer, the woman continued, "I'll give you a few minutes," and then walked away.

Meatloaf didn't sound good. Nothing sounded good. Why did she need to eat? Her mother's voice was back, had to eat to keep up her strength, to keep from getting sick. But she didn't care. Who would care if she was sick? She had no one now.

She barely recognized the woman coming back and sitting a glass of ice water on the table in front of her. Grace heard the woman ask a question, or, at least, she heard noise coming out of her mouth, but couldn't comprehend it. It was as if a cloud, a fog, had settled over her mind. She couldn't think; her hands were shaking. She opened her mouth to say something to the woman standing in front of her and found that she couldn't think. The world around her went black.


	4. Chapter 4

Rigsby sat at his desk for no good reason, really: He didn't have to be at work—they had all been given desk duty what with Grace and Jane and all that—but he just couldn't help it. It was habit. He knew there had to be a way to find her.

"Stop thinking so hard, you're going to wear out your brain."

"Funny." Rigsby ignored the Asian man who sat down in the desk across from his. Cho had come back to the office with him after they had seen Lisbon at the hospital. Rigsby was sure Chow as feeling just as helpless as he was, but was just hiding it better.

"There has to be a way we can find her."

"She doesn't want to be found."

"You can't know that." Rigsby spun slowly in his chair. There was no joy in it, just a mindless movement to keep from going crazy.

"I can." Cho's voice was still, steady, same as it always was.

"How!" Rigsby was getting annoyed. No one seemed to care. Everyone was focused on Jane. It just didn't seem right.

"If she'd wanted to be found, she would have told us where she was going or gotten in touch with us. Instead she turned off her phone, cleared out her bank account and stopped using her credit cards. She knows how not to be tracked. After all, she's the one who always does the tracking down."

Rigsby opened his mouth, closed it again, and then kept spinning. He couldn't bear to think that Grace would be running from them, form him. That she wouldn't come to him for comfort. They were friends, weren't they?

"Yeah, but why would she leave? I mean, we're her friends!" Rigsby said, coming to a stop.

"She was the person who told the mole that the woman who had been framed as the mole was in hiding. And then she shot her fiancé and was most likely the one who made the fatal shot."

"I never did like that guy." Rigsby muttered under his breath, resuming his spinning. If only Jane were here, he would be able to figure out where Grace was.

Lisbon sat up in her hospital bed. She was on pain medication that was making her feel better than she had in ages. She looked at the folder in her hands. She'd had Cho send over Grace's personnel file. She didn't know if that was the proper thing to do, but she knew that she needed to be the one who called Grace's family, not LaRoche or some nameless, faceless, impersonal person. Besides, she was the only one who would be able to answer the hard questions that Grace's family was likely to ask.

She took a deep breath and picked up her cell phone. Slowly dialing the number, she put her phone to her ear and listened to the sound of it ringing in her ear. She prayed briefly that no one would answer the phone—that she would be spared from making this call for at least a while—but that wasn't to be.

"_Hello?"_

Lisbon sighed. "Hello. This is Teresa Lisbon. I work with Grace, is this Mr. Van Pelt?" She had his first name in the file, but she didn't think it was appropriate, not under the circumstances.

"_Yes, this is him." _Lisbon could hear the slight panic in his voice, and she knew that he was going through all the possible horrible situations that could be coming.

"Mr. Van Pelt, I don't know how to say this." She took a deep breath, trying to gather her nerves. "There's been an incident."

"_No." _His voice was barely audible; she was sure that he was thinking the worst, that Grace was dead. She continued quickly, before he was too far gone to think clearly.

"There was a mole, a person who worked with our office that was helping a serial killer named Red John." She paused; she could hear breathing on the other end. He was still listening. "We thought we knew who it was, but we were wrong." She found herself tearing up; she should be able to handle this.

"_Grace would never—" _ Lisbon cut him off in mid sentence.

"She didn't know that we had the wrong person. But she brought the mole to a safe house where we were guarding a witness." She paused again, but continued before Mr. Van Pelt would have a chance to say something. "It was Craig; he had been lying, using her to get close to the case. He tried to shoot us, he did shoot me. Grace, she did the only thing I'm sure that she could think of. She had to shoot him."

There was a gasping noise, and Lisbon for the first time wished she'd taken more time to get to know Grace. Wherever she was hiding, Grace would never forgive Lisbon if she gave her father a heart attack.

"_How is Grace? Why are you calling?" _She could still hear the panic in the man's voice, like he somehow knew that the worst hadn't come yet.

"We don't know."

"_What do you mean, you don't know_?"

"She was at the scene, and before anyone had a chance to talk to her, while the paramedics were still working on me, she disappeared."

There was silence on the other end of the line as the man digested what she had said.

"_What do you mean, disappeared_?"

"I'm sorry, sir; we don't know where she is. She's turned off her cell phone. She's not using her credit cards; we don't have a way to track her. No one has seen her."

"_Was she…was she kidnapped_?" If possible, his voice seemed even shakier than it had just moments earlier.

"No, we don't think she was." Lisbon looked down at the sheet of paper that had the only information they knew about Grace's disappearance on it. "One of the local officers on the scene reported seeing her walk from the house, but didn't think anything of it. She cleaned out her bank account; we think she's using cash."

"_She doesn't want us to know where she is_?" His voice sounded broken. Lisbon wished that she could be there for him, wished she'd made sure that his wife was there, that he had someone, but she hadn't.

"She's been through a lot. We will find her. We will make sure she's ok." She said as gently as she could.

As she hung up the phone she realized her words were nothing but an empty promise, nothing more than false hope.


	5. Chapter 5

She was standing in the cabin. Lisbon was next to her, and she could tell Hightower was behind her. The door opened, light flooded in, blinding her. She put her hand up to shade her eyes and saw Craig, standing there, smiling. He'd always had a charming smile.

She started to move towards him when his face started to melt away, the handsome features and charming smile that she was used to was melting into a bare skull. No, not a skull: a hideous red face, a smile, in blood. Hovering over Craig's body, which also started melting until all that was left was the face.

"It's Red John!" she heard a shout from beside her. Hightower and Lisbon started shooting, and the smiley face started spouting blood everywhere. It was all over her, staining her hands. She looked down and saw her hands melting where the blood had landed on her. She started screaming.

Then suddenly she was on the floor; Lisbon's face appeared above her, thin, pale, almost ghost-like.

"It's your fault!"

"What?"

"You killed me!"

"No, I didn't know."

"You let him in, you let him do this to me. You killed me!"

Her voice was grating, screeching, and suddenly she was a crow, big and black with flapping wings.

The talons on Lisbon's feet, the crow's feet, started ripping at Grace, the sharp beak started picking at her face. Grace threw her hands up, trying to protect her face from the bird.

Cawing invaded her ears. It was all she could hear. All she could think about was the bird, the pain, the horror, the sadness.

And then it was gone and all that was left was an empty wasteland, dry and barren.

There was no one, nothing, and she felt hollow. This is where she belonged. Far from where she could hurt anyone. Far from those that she loved and had let down.


	6. Chapter 6

Jane was annoyed. He knew that the people on the team would be pissed off at him for shooting Red John, but still, there was no way that not even _one_ of them had come to see him when he was in jail. He was in Sacramento for crying out loud!

He'd tried getting information from the officers that had processed him, but they had stone walled him. And that annoyed him. He was in a cell by himself, not being allowed to interact with the other inmates due to his status as a consultant for the CBI. There was some bull about him being a target for vengeance seekers, but he thought that was ridiculous. Who would want to kill him? He was charming!

He lay back on his bunk. There was a sliver of window through which he could see the sky. It was blue, bright blue. He thought, for maybe the first time, if this was really what he had wanted. Sure, Red John was dead, but he'd thought that he would get more praise for it.

No, praise was the wrong word. He thought that the team would come to him, come see him, tell him that it was ok that he'd killed someone in cold blood because of who it was. It was Red John, so it was okay. But, no one had come.

Here it was the second day. The only person he'd seen was a public defender. He had a thought that he should just represent himself, but he didn't think that would help any. Sure he could smooth talk a jury, but he didn't know the ins and outs of the law like an actual lawyer.

He could hear other inmates out in the yard: shouting, yelling, a metallic clang that made him think that they were playing basketball. He wished he was out there, not that he would be able to play. He never had been athletic, not even as a teen.

He wondered what had happened up at the cabin. He'd not been able to call Rigsby or Cho before the cops showed up. To be honest, that wasn't the first thing he had thought about after killing Red John.

As he sat there he'd thought that he would have a sense of relief, a sense of peace that the man who had caused him so much pain and suffering was now dead by his hand, but it hadn't come.

And now he was sitting in this jail cell, listening to the clanking of bars through a door with a window less than twelve inches square and a slit through which his food got shoved three times a day. He was just closing his eyes to nap—what else was there to do?—when the door to his cell banged open and he jumped, nearly falling off the laughable shelf that was called a bed.

"Lawyer's here." The guard said, motioning for Jane to stand. He groaned. He disliked handcuffs. The ones that the guard was holding were not ones he could easily get out of as they shackled his hands to his waist.

They walked down the hall, the guard standing closer than Jane would have liked, and into a room that was almost as small as his cell. Jane was forced into a chair that was bolted to the floor. His hands were cuffed to the table, which he noticed was cemented and then also bolted to the ground.

"Hello, Mr. Jane." The man (Jane refused to call him his lawyer) said. He was small, thin framed with thin hair. Too young to be of any real use in a capital murder case, which Jane was almost certain his case would turn into, he was nonetheless what the court had seen fit to present him with.

"Hello." No need to be impolite at least, even if Jane didn't care for the man.

"I've got news on your co-workers for you. I thought you might be interested."

Jane sat in his chair, trying to look uninterested, but he was anxious to hear what the lawyer had to say. "Are they coming to see me?"

"No." There was a pause, and Jane could tell there was more to his answer than a simple denial.

"Teresa Lisbon is still in the hospital." The man looked down at his hand folded in front of him on the table. "She's in good condition, but she's not been released. And Grace Van Pelt is still missing. There are no leads on that. And Kimball Cho and Wayne Rigsby are both on desk duty pending a full investigation."

Jane didn't say anything, still processing the lawyer's words. He had spoken like Jane had known that Lisbon was in the hospital or that Grace was missing. What had happened at the cabin after he'd started talking to Red John? Hadn't Rigsby and Cho gotten there in time? He'd had faith that they would fix any mess that came out of the simple mistake that he'd made in determining the identity of the mole.

"What happened?" He finally spoke, voice soft, as if in shock.

"You don't know? I thought they had told you when they brought you in." The lawyer spoke, disbelief that this man, the famous Patrick Jane, didn't know what had happened to the people he surrounded himself with. "That FBI agent, Craig O'Laughlin shot Agent Lisbon and was then shot and killed by Agent Van Pelt and Madeline Hightower. And then Agent Van Pelt just disappeared from the cabin they were all in. No one knows where she's gone and there haven't been any leads since the last time she used her ATM card to clean out her bank account."

Jane didn't say anything. He was thinking. How had things gone so wrong? Sure, he knew that he would end up in jail, but he didn't think that Lisbon would get hurt, that anything would happen to the people on his team. They had backed him up, followed his every lead regardless of the rules or consequences, and he had let them down. He hadn't thought past killing Red John, and now it was too late to do anything else.


	7. Chapter 7

She was warm, but not hot. There was a cool breeze that smelt like summer, and she could hear a bird singing. She didn't want to open her eyes; she wanted to snuggle down into the bed and the covers and stay there forever.

But she had a nagging feeling that something was wrong. That something wasn't what it should be. She slowly opened her eyes and looked around.

She didn't know where she was. She sat bolt upright in bed, her heart pounding. She remembered shooting Craig; she remembered taking a bus; she remembered going to the diner, but then nothing.

Had Red John gotten her? But no, Jane had surly taken care of that. And this room…It was white, with soft blue accents and creamy lace curtains fluttering in the breeze. The bed she was in was soft and clean, and she wasn't restrained in any way. The furniture had a pleasant worn look about it that suggested antique without shouting it.

She noticed that she was still wearing her clothes, though her shoes had been removed. She looked down at them and grimaced. They were covered in dirt and grime and were wrinkled beyond belief.

She was surprised by how shaky she was, as if she hadn't eaten in a while, and she wondered how long she had been in this room, and as long as she was on the subject, where the room even _was_? There was a mirror over the dresser, and she glanced in it quickly before turning away. There were dark rings around her eyes, and her cheeks looked sunken and pale. She ran her hands through her hair and was shocked at how brittle and dry it seemed.

She looked down at her shoes and had no desire to put them on. They looked heavy, and she didn't feel she had the energy to even slide her feet into them. As she sat there contemplating her shoes, she heard a nose outside the door. She knew she should get up, knew that she should raise a defensive stance. But she simply couldn't make her body do it.

All of her training was telling her that she should get up, hide, grab something to defend herself. But there was another voice—one that was louder than the rest—that told her it just didn't matter. That she had run away because her training as no longer reliable: that she couldn't trust her judgment; that she shouldn't care what happens to her.

The internal war was still going on when the door swung open and a middle aged man with thinning hair and khakis came in. He smiled when he saw her sitting up.

"Hello there," he said walking towards her and sitting in a chair that was positioned near the bed. "I'm glad to see you're awake. We were a bit worried when you collapsed in the diner."

She stared at him, trying to process what was going on, what he was saying, what she was doing here, in this room.

When she didn't say anything the man continued. "I'm Dr. Michael Ryan; I came to Starlight after I retired. I used to be a busy doctor with a bustling family practice in San Francisco, but I realized I just wanted to slow down. I spend most of my time now putting Band-Aids on knees and making the occasional house call for sore throats. You're the most excitement we've had around here in years."

"What happened?" Her voice was hoarse, scratchy, and it hurt to talk.

"Well, you collapsed in the diner, which scared Mable half to death. We brought you up to my house—I'm just across the street—and I looked you over." He passed, letting her absorb what he had said. "You are seriously dehydrated and it looks like you haven't eaten in quite a while."

Grace nodded, slightly. She knew that she hadn't had anything to eat or drink since before the incident at the cabin. She wasn't sure how long that was: she'd lost track of the days when she'd thrown her phone away. She didn't need it. She was going to leave that life behind.

She should never have gotten off that bus. She should have just ridden it until she keeled over.

"I gave you some IV fluids, but only enough to get you going again. I thought you might want to tell me what's going on first." Dr. Ryan pointed at the bandage on the back of her hand that she'd not noticed before.

"What day is it?" She needed to know. She needed to know how long she had been away, how much time she had before the team came looking for her. She needed to know how long it had been since she'd killed Craig: how long it had been since her world came crashing down on her.

"It's Friday."

Friday. Four days since the cabin. Four days since she'd thought she was in love. Four days since she found out that the man she was going to marry was a minion for Red John. He'd been using her, and she'd been an all too willing accomplice.

"Now that you know a bit about me," Dr. Ryan's voice broke into her thoughts, "Why don't you tell me a little bit about you."

"Um…" She hesitated. Four days was a long time. A long time for the team to be looking, a long time for the word to be out that she was missing. "Grace. My name is Grace."

"Nice to meet you, Grace. Would you like some food? Mabel makes a mean meatloaf, or chicken soup if you'd rather."

"I'm not really hungry." The talking was getting a bit easier, but her voice still sounded odd in her ears.

"No such luck. Doctor's orders: you need to eat and drink. Unless you'd like to go to the city."

She felt her heart start pounding. She couldn't go there. A hospital wouldn't take a first name and smile; they would want to know who she was. And the team would be looking for her in places like that.

"Soup would be nice." She stood, legs unsteady.

"Shoes first? The road is a bit rough over to the diner."

She looked down at her shoes. They still looked so heavy; she just couldn't bring herself to put them on.

"Or, I've got some slippers that might work for you."

She nodded. Slippers would be better. She didn't want to eat, didn't want to live, but she would, if only because she didn't know what else to do.


	8. Chapter 8

Rigsby sat on his couch, laptop open on the coffee table in front of him. Grace had been gone almost a week. OK, four days, but in the world of missing persons it might as well be a year. He felt helpless. He didn't know what to do. Give him a burned out shell of a building, and he was in heaven. He could tell you the path of the flames, the point of origin, the ignition source…but missing persons? He was hopeless at it. He didn't like the waiting, the not knowing, the eventual outcome. He knew the way it worked. If you didn't find a person in 24 hours, the chances that you ever would decreased. If you did find them, they were usually dead.

But he couldn't think of that. Grace hadn't been abducted; at least, he didn't think so. He'd been trying to follow the investigation, but it had been hard to get any information. He had the TV in front of him on mute, the news on. He was trying to see if they mentioned her today. He had thought for sure there would have been more media coverage. Not that there hadn't been media coverage of the case. Man, had there been coverage of the case.

Red John had been splashed all over the news, and Jane had gotten his fair share of media time. The first day, that seemed like all it had been. Old footage of Jane's TV interviews, old clients, professing that he was some sort of God, or better. And then talk of his wife and daughter. All the pain he'd been through. They had even managed to track down some of the first people to work with Jane at the CBI. They all called him a crack pot, half unhinged, and a nut case just waiting for the opportunity to strike. One channel had managed to get a hold of Minelli, not that it had done them any good. All he said was that Jane had been an effective consultant who had helped catch numerous dangerous people.

And then there was the incident at the cabin. The camera crews were kept far enough away that they hadn't really been able to see anything, but any time there was an officer involved shooting there was always press. And when it was cop on cop…

The only time Grace had even been mentioned in the first day was as a side note, that one of the agents accused of shooting the FBI agent had gone missing. They didn't even show her picture. How the hell were they supposed to find her if there was no media coverage?

He'd started his own investigation of sorts, at home, by himself. He had googled the town that she'd used her ATM card in. It was out in the middle of nowhere, about an hour by car from the cabin. He didn't think she'd walked there. It would have taken her all night to get there if she had. He didn't know how to track down anyone she might have hitchhiked with, and didn't know how else she would have gotten there.

He looked at the google map again. There was a bus station in the town she'd been in. But the busses went everywhere. And what if she'd stayed in the town? He needed to get there and talk to people, try and figure out what was going on.

He nearly jumped when there was a knock at the door. Closing his laptop and turning off the TV, he made his way to the door and looked through the peep hole.

"Cho," Rigsby said, opening the door, "What are you doing here?"

"Good to see you to." Cho replied. "Boss wants to see us."

"We've been put on administrative leave, remember?"

"Lisbon doesn't care."

"Isn't she still in the hospital?" He asked as he grabbed his keys and locked the door.

"Yeah."

"Couldn't she have just called?"

"She didn't think you would come on your own."

"What?" He followed Cho down the outdoor hallway of his apartment and down a flight of stairs to the parking lot.

"She wants to talk about Grace and Jane. She thinks we need to work things through."

"Work what through?"

"Both shootings and the disappearance." They were next to Cho's car, and he motioned for Rigsby to get in.

"Why are you driving?"

"Because I want to actually get there."

As they climbed in the car Rigsby scowled at Cho. "And why wouldn't I get there?"

"Lisbon thinks you're spending too much time obsessing over the wrong thing in this case."

"What?" Rigsby exclaimed again, feeling a bit blindsided.

"She wants to make sure we're all looking for the right reasons."

Rigsby didn't respond to Cho's last comment, just glared out the window as they pulled onto the freeway and headed toward the hospital. He loved Grace, how could that be the wrong reason for wanting to find her and bring her back?


	9. Chapter 9

Grace felt uncomfortable sitting in the diner. She'd shuffled across the street with the doctor, seeing the town as if for the first time. The street was quiet, and though there were a few cars parked, there were none driving down the street. The weather was warm, but not too hot. The diner was not the only building on the street: next to it there was a general store and a bank. It looked like a town you'd see on TV, not something that you would see in real life.

Dr. Ryan had insisted that she sit by a window, saying that she needed the sunshine. When the soup came, she took a tentative first bite, not realizing how cold and empty her stomach had been until the first bite of hot liquid flowed down her throat. She had a sense that the food was good, but couldn't seem to truly enjoy it. It was simply nourishment: something to keep her going when she didn't want to be.

She noticed those details she'd missed the first time she was here. The walls were butter yellow and the laminate on the chairs looked like rainbow sherbet. The table that she sat at had a worn top; though she could tell at one time it had been speckled and flecked with black and white.

After sitting for a bit, only having eaten half of her soup, the waitress—the same one from before—brought her a check. Panic set in on her. She vaguely remembered pulling all of her money out of the ATM in the town she'd gotten on the bus at, but she didn't know what had happened to it. She didn't have a purse or a bag; she'd had a small wallet in her pocket, just her debit card, a credit card and her license when she had gotten to the cabin. She didn't know where she would have put all the money she would have pulled out.

Just as her heart felt like it was going to beat out her chest, Dr. Ryan appeared next to her.

"I found this in your coat pocket. I thought you might want it." He handed her her wallet and a paper bag. "I didn't count it, but you might want to find a better place to keep that than in your pocket. It's a miracle that you didn't lose it on the way here."

In the bag was the money she had just moments ago been panicking about. She didn't know how much was supposed to be there, but she got the feeling that she wouldn't find any of it missing. Grace pulled out a twenty and placed it on the table. Getting up she looked around. She didn't know where to go.

"Is there a hotel in town?" She asked no one in particular.

"Sure is, Hon, right upstairs." The waitress said, smiling at her.

It somehow didn't surprise Grace that the diner also doubled at a hotel; it seemed to be that kind of a small town.

"Would you like a room?" The woman asked when Grace didn't say anything.

"Oh, um, yes. That would be fine."

"My name's Raeleen. You need anything just ask. You got a bathroom in the room with you, so you don't have to share. Go down the hall up the stairs at the end, it's the first door on the right. Got a number two on it." She handed Grace a key and turned to help a customer who had just walked in.

"Grace," Dr. Ryan's voice called to her as she was walking away. "Please take care of yourself. I know you need a lot of rest, but please don't forget to take care of yourself. This town can be an amazing sanctuary as long as you need it to be."

Grace looked at him and nodded. He was being so kind to her. It was as if he could read her mind, that he knew she needed to be alone, to run away. eGrace thought she should ask about rates, or if she should sign something, but she didn't: just walked toward the hallway that had a sign saying bathroom. Up the stairs and to the right, and she found her room. The window in this room looked over what had most likely been the back yard when the restaurant below was a house, and the garden was overgrown but lovely all the same: the flowers and shrubs clearly left alone to develop as they will without a forced structure being imposed upon them. Even from above she could see the pail yellows and greens that made up the garden. Splashes of white and pink punctuated the depth of tangled bushes. She turned from the window and looked at the rest of the room.

She didn't have any clothes to put in the dresser, but she put her wallet in the top drawer and the bag of money next to it. She sat on the bed and then lay down. The ceiling was old plaster and there were a few cracks in it, but the paint was new.

The bed smelled slightly dusty, as if it hadn't been used in a while. Grace was ok with that. It seemed fitting that she was in a disused room. She was disused. She closed her eyes and saw Craig, the cabin, the flash of a gun. Without knowing it, she started to cry.


	10. Chapter 10

Lisbon sat in the hospital room slowly going crazy. She understood why she was still here, knew that it was the best for her physically, but the inability to do anything to help the people she cared for was going to driving her insane. When she'd called Cho this morning and told him that she wanted to meet with him and Rigsby, it was because she knew that they needed it. As much as she was sure that they would deny it, she knew that both Cho and Rigsby were at a loss for what to do.

For a moment she wished that Jane could be there with them, helping to find Grace, before she remembered that it was his fault that they were in this position to begin with. No, that wasn't fair. It wasn't all his fault. There was blame to go around to all of them. A good portion of it fell squarely on her. She should have nipped Jane's insanity in the bud, but instead she'd allowed him to run wild.

And Grace…how did these men keep finding her? Lisbon felt sorry for the younger woman. All she seemed to want was a man to be there for her when she came home at night. Lisbon had long ago given up that dream, but Grace had been so young, fresh faced and naive when she'd first joined the team. Lisbon was afraid that this last incident had broken her for good. That there was no coming back for Grace. She hoped she was wrong.

She looked toward the door when she heard Cho and Rigsby out in the hallway. Not that they were talking, but the way they walked was very un-nurse like.

"Hey, Boss." Cho said as they walked in. Rigsby said nothing, just looked grumpy and sullen.

"Hey guys." She tried to sit up straighter and gasped. The pain was still intense. She was trying not to use the morphine, but it was hard. "How's it going?"

"Still can't really work. Jane's still in jail, Van Pelt is still missing." Rigsby said; a touch of bitterness in his voice.

"Right, well, life sucks sometimes. At least you two aren't in the hospital because a psycho shot you." She snapped back. "What matters is that we're here for each other, and for Jane, and for Grace."

"Yeah. A lot of good that's going to do." Rigsby muttered under his breath. Lisbon ignored him.

"Have either of you gone to see him?" She asked.

"He's not allowed to have visitors right now. But his lawyer might be able to get us into see him." Cho said, knowing that Rigsby had been so focused on Grace that he wouldn't have bothered to check.

"Any chance of getting in as law enforcement?"

"No. We've been put on a black list. The guards have been informed that none of us are to see Jane. And that he's not allowed to receive packages. A letter might be ok, but not with anything in the envelope."

"What the hell?"

"He's escaped from jail once. The DA successfully painted him as a renegade with no ties to the community who would think nothing of breaking out and going on the run. He's not even in the general population. And his bail has been denied."

"Lovely. Well, not much we can do there can we? At least not now. Who's his lawyer?"

"Some newbie public defender. I don't really see Jane ponying up the cash to pay for a better lawyer." Cho said with a huff.

"Maybe we can help him out. We know some people in high places that Jane has helped out. When we're done here, you two see if you can get in touch with any of them about helping Jane financially."

"Right." Cho said, looking at Rigsby who nodded after a moment.

"Any news on Grace?" Lisbon asked after a slight pause.

"Not really. Still no leads. There aren't a lot of man hours being dedicated to looking for her since it looks like she wasn't abducted. Her disappearance has been relegated to the locals, who don't really care what happened to someone who was dating a cop killer." Rigsby said.

"Cop killer?"

"No one told you? Turns out that O'Laughlin didn't just shoot you. He also shot the two local cops that were acting as surveillance. They never saw him coming, didn't even have a chance to pull their guns." There was an almost vicious tone to Rigsby's voice.

"What do we know about _Grace_?" Lisbon said, speaking firmly, wanting to bring Rigsby back to focus on what was important.

"Um…the town she was last seen in has a bus station that has a lot of buses coming and going. Seems it's a bit of a hub for the area. No one's checked the buses to see if she got on any of them. If she did, she could be out of the state by now."

"OK." Lisbon paused. She had to word this next part carefully. "Rigsby, I know you still love Grace, but you need to think about why you want to find her so much."

"What do you mean? I want to find her and bring her home. I love her, yeah; sure, we all know that. She needs me right now. I can help her get over that asshole that she was dating. I can help her."

There was desperation in his voice, and Lisbon felt for him. She wanted to be able to tell him that wanting Grace to come back because he loved her and because he thought he was the right man for her was a good thing. But she couldn't. She couldn't because she didn't think that it would help Grace. Because Grace had run away from the life that she'd had, because she was broken. Maybe beyond repair, though Lisbon hoped not.

"Rigsby, that's not going to help her." Lisbon said firmly.

"The hell it is! I'm her friend. I was her lover. I know how to help."

And as much as she wanted to believe him, she didn't. "We need to think about Grace right now and what she would want. We want to find her, but we need to make sure that it's not going to scare her away when we do."

The room was silent: Rigsby not talking, Cho knowing it wasn't his place.

"See what you can do, but don't push her if you find her." Lisbon said at last, known that Rigsby was going to do everything he could anyway.

Jane was sitting in his closet of a cell staring at the slit near the ceiling that served for a window and contemplating his life. Or what he now had that passed for a life. None of the team had been to see him. This bothered him. He figured that Lisbon would be pissed off at him, but that at least Cho would come to see him. There was a clanking at his door and he sat up.

"Lawyer's here." The guard huffed at him. The shackles were put on, and Jane shuffled down the hall to the room where he'd last met with his lawyer. After Jane was chained to the table, the guard left.

"Hello, Mr. Jane." The lawyer said cordially. "No news on your case, but I do have a message for you."

"A message?" As much as he tried to act disinterested, he was intrigued.

"A letter really, delivered to me by messenger just an hour ago. I thought you might like to read it. I suppose that your friends thought that by sending it with me it would get to you sooner and not be read by the guards. But, the note with it said that it didn't matter if I read it. So I did. You've managed to annoy a lot of people Mr. Jane."

The young man handed Jane an envelope that had already been opened. He recognized the handwriting on the front as belonging to Lisbon, and he smiled in spite of himself. He knew she would be in contact. He pulled the letter out of the envelope and tried not to let the disappointment show on his face as the letter appeared hastily written and was only on one sheet of paper. Putting aside his disappointment he began to read.

_Dear Idiot,_

_As much as I'm sure you don't care that you're in jail and that your scheme to catch Red John has thrown the rest of our lives in to a tizzy, I thought you'd like to know that we still care about you. As I'm sure you don't care about your legal counse,l I asked Cho to see if he could persuade some of the people we've helped in the past to help pay for a decent lawyer for you. Not that your public defender isn't perfectly capable, but it's looking like you're facing capital murder charges in a very high profile case. That's not really something that someone who just got out of law school would be familiar with._

_Because of the hell you've put the team through the past few days, I'm not going to be out of the hospital for at least another week. The doctors said that stress is affecting my body's ability to heal properly. Not sure why I'd have stress._

_Grace is still missing. I'm sure you don't feel responsible for that at all. Rigsby is going to try and get you to help him find her. Please don't. I know you find the idea of them as a couple sweet and endearing, but this is not the time for Rigsby to try to save Grace. He wants to find her to fulfill some romantic notion that she'll come running back to him. We both know that if this happens, Grace is only going to pull further away._

_Good luck with your trial. We've been put on a black list and can't come to see you, but we're trying to work on that. It's a bit hard when I'm still in the hospital and they guys are still on leave._

It wasn't signed, but Jane didn't need it to be. He'd never been one for following rules, but this time he thought he might be able to.


	11. Chapter 11

There was a calendar on the wall of her room. Grace hadn't noticed it the first day she was there, but she looked at it every day now. She counted the days from her spot on the bed. Two weeks. Fourteen days. Almost half a month since her world was turned on its head and she had left. Run away. Perhaps it wasn't the grown up, adult thing to do, but it was what she had done.

She'd left this room very little the first few days. Food was an afterthought, and it was only the visits form Dr. Ryan that made her think to eat. She'd gone to the small general store and bought the necessary toiletries, but that was it.

In the weeks that had passed, she'd started moving through the town. At first she just sat out in front of the diner on a bench and watched the cars go by. The bus, she discovered, only came by on Mondays. It made her wonder how long it was that she drove around the California Mountains not knowing what was going on or where she was going. She'd not really paid attention to when she'd gotten off the bus.

The week after she got there, she'd moved off the bench. The tiny town didn't have many roads, but she walked them all. She didn't pay much attention to the houses or other buildings that she passed, but she did notice the way that the sun filtered through the trees leaving a dappled pattern on the sidewalks and streets. The play with the light and shadow exemplified how she was felling.

She was in her room now, lying on the bed. The quilt felt homemade, and without realizing she started thinking of home. Her grandmother had made all of her grandchildren quilts for Christmas one year. They were made out of fabric scraps, and Grace remembered the hours spent with her sister looking over their quilts and pointing out the fabric with which their grandmother had made outfits for them before.

Grace didn't want to think about her sister; she tried not to. Even before all of this had happened, she didn't want to think about her. She missed her. And it hurt, that she hadn't told her what was going on. That her sister hadn't confided in her about the pain she was feeling. Grace wondered idly if anyone on the team felt that way: if they felt hurt or betrayed because she had run away instead of staying in a place that had caused her so much pain.

Rigsby she knew would want her to come back. But she wasn't going to date him. She didn't want to open herself up to anyone right now, and she knew that if she were to come back—to go back to Sacramento—that it would be the first thing on his mind. He wouldn't think that she was hurting; he wouldn't think that she was in pain, that she was just betrayed by her fiancé; he would only think of himself. He was like that. Even when they were dating before. And she just couldn't put up with that.

Jane wouldn't miss her. Not really. She was someone to mess with, someone to torment and tease. The way that all little boys do on the playground. Besides, if he'd really missed her, Grace was sure that Jane could have found her by now.

Cho, he wouldn't look. Her problems didn't directly influence him, and he was the closed off type. While he was kind and probably considered her a friend, they had never been very close and had never hung out outside of work.

Lisbon though, Lisbon she felt bad about. The woman was shot by Craig. Lisbon was shot by the man that Grace thought was in love with her. That she was weeks away from marrying. And what did she do? She ran away. Sometimes she thought that she should go back, for Lisbon's sake, but she couldn't.

It was still painful. It still hurt. To think that she had been the one to put the team at risk. That her trust had been betrayed again. If this was the first time, she thought, the team might forgive her. But this was the second time that someone she was with, someone she was dating, had tried to hurt them. And this time it was worse than Jane being temporarily blind.

She stood up and walked towards the bathroom. She didn't look in the mirror. She hadn't really looked in a mirror since the first day she was there. Since the day she saw the sunken faced pale woman staring back at her. And she couldn't bear to see that again. When she showered, she didn't wipe the fog off the mirror. When she brushed her teeth, she closed her eyes. She didn't know why she had been avoiding her reflection, but she decided to look now.

Her hair was flat, more so than usual. She was pale, and her eyes looked tired. She had no makeup—not that she would put it on if she had any—and her face looked odd to her without it. She picked up a brush and ran it through her hair. The ends floated up, dry and charged with static electricity.

She'd always had long hair, since she was young; she'd only ever trimmed it. Her sister's hair, however, had changed the style the way some people changed clothes, but it had always been beautiful. Grace had never been that brave. But today she decided that she was done. Done with the long hair. Done with the safe styles. Done with being plain, safe, predictable Grace.

She knew that there was a barber shop in town, right next door to the diner. She didn't know if the man who ran it would be able to cut a woman's hair, but she didn't care. She'd cut it herself if she had scissors. She just wanted a change.

She walked down the stairs towards the diner. She didn't pay attention to the people who were there eating their lunch; she didn't care if they looked at her. She didn't care that in this small town her appearance and apparent physical and emotional distress had become a topic of gossip. She just didn't want to go home. And she didn't want to be the way she had been when she was younger.

The barber shop was dark and dusty. There were a few older men who were sitting along the wall; most of them were bald, which almost made her smile. She looked around, hoping that one of the men would start to talk, just so she wouldn't feel so awkward.

"Can I help you?" a man wearing a blue jeans and a cowboy shirt asked, standing up. He had a white apron wrapped around his waist with a comb sticking out of the pocket.

"Um, yes, I'd like a haircut." She said, surprised at how timid her voice sounded.

"What did you have in mind? A few inches off the bottom or something else?"

Grace looked around at the men. Most of them were trying not to look at her, but failing miserably. She wanted a transformation; she wanted to change what was most recognizable about herself.

"I want it all cut off." She said, taking a seat in the chair that the man indicated.

"So you want to look like those guys?" He said gesturing to the men behind them.

"No, just, I want something different. Something new." She looked at her reflection in the mirror in front of her. Noticed the barber standing behind her, hands hovering in the air near her shoulders. She watched as he picked up her hair and let it float down.

He nodded and looked at her in the mirror before he swept a gown over her clothes. She looked in the mirror one more time and shut her eyes, saying a silent goodbye to the woman she used to be: the woman who had needed a man to feel complete, a woman who was willing to let a man walk all over her for love. When she opened her eyes again it would be the beginning of a new life, of a new woman who would stand on her own two feet and not let anyone take advantage of her.


	12. Chapter 12

Rigsby looked up at the schedule board in the small overheated bus station. He'd been here every day for a week trying to track down the drivers of all the buses that had left this hell hole of a town the day that Grace disappeared. Despite Lisbon's words of warning, he'd been looking into all the angles possible for finding Grace. This had been his last hope. He didn't know if he'd be able to get into see Jane; he'd not even really considered it.

He'd managed to talk to all but three of the drivers. They were all on routes that took them into other states and didn't come back to this station in California for a while, which was disheartening. He'd tried getting security video of the bus station on the night that she disappeared, but without a warrant, the station manager wouldn't give them to him. Not that it would help. None of the employees in the bus station seemed to recognize the picture that Rigsby had of Grace.

He sat down heavily on a bench in front of the bus station and looked at the picture. It was one that he particularly liked of her, taken while they were dating. Her hair was braided off to the side and pulled over her shoulder. She had been sitting under a tree, and the sunlight dappling through the leaves cast shadows on her face that seemed to highlight the color of her eyes and made her skin look radiant.

He loved her so much. It had killed him when she had started dating O'Laughlin. But there wasn't anything he could do about that now. O'Laughlin was dead, and if Rigsby managed to find Grace, he would tell her that he loved her, that he would protect her. That's what he'd always done. He'd always been there for her when she needed it. Of course, usually he knew where she was.

Rigsby leaned back on the bench and sighed. He needed help: needed someone who would be able to charm their way into getting that security footage, or at least, someone who could tell him how to do it himself. He needed Jane. He knew it would be hard to get in to see him. Hell, it would be nearly impossible. But he needed to do _something_. Rigsby pulled out his cell phone and started making calls.

He had an idea.

The lawyer was nervous. He'd never done something against the rules. He'd been warned, of course, that breaking the rules was something that Patrick Jane did as easily as breathing and to not get sucked in. And so far he hadn't. But he felt sorry for the man. Other than the one letter he'd delivered to him over a week ago, there had been no visitors, no contact. Nothing from his friends in the CBI.

Maybe they were all just following the rules, but from the gossip around town he knew that wasn't the case. He suspected it was only a matter of time before he was asked to bend the rules again. This time perhaps doing more than just delivering a letter that the guards didn't need to read.

So when he'd gotten a call from one of the agents that worked with Jane at the CBI, he couldn't say he was surprised. He'd been expecting it. Now, standing in the lobby of the jail waiting to be shown to an interview room, the lawyer could feel his heart racing. He was sweating profusely and hoped that the guard wouldn't say anything.

It had been slightly unusual for him to come to see a client with another person in tow, but he simply explained that the man with him was going to be working as a researcher for the trial. It was a capital murder case after all, and he needed to meet Mr. Jane. Surprisingly, the guard bought the half-baked story.

"All right," the guard said, coming towards them, "we've got your room ready. You want to come back and get your stuff set up while we bring him in."

"Thanks." The lawyer said, walking behind the guard and hoping that Agent Rigsby would be smart enough to follow.

The settled into the visiting room and waited in silence. He wanted to ask the agent beside him what was so important that he had to see Mr. Jane, but he didn't. He couldn't. There were some things he just didn't want to know about his client.

He looked up when he heard the telltale jingling of chains that meant a prisoner was approaching. To his credit, Jane didn't look surprised to see someone else in the room when he walked in and refrained from talking until after the guard had left them alone.

"Rigsby," Jane observed calmly. Thought I'd see you a lot sooner than this."

"Sorry, Jane, it was harder to get in than I thought it was going to be. Besides, I was trying to find Grace." Rigsby shifted uncomfortably, his form seeming to overfill the small metal chair. He kept trying to scoot closer to the table then falling back into the chair when it didn't move.

"I know."

"You know what?"

"I know that you were trying to find Grace." Jane leaned back as much as he could in his chair and sighed. The lawyer was surprised. This was the first time he'd seen the supposed psychic look tired. It was as if in the one movement, he'd aged ten years. "I can't help you."

"Wait, what?" This was obviously not the answer that Rigsby had expected and his voice betrayed his frustration and anger.

"Lisbon asked me not too." Jane's voice was sad, resigned.

"Since when has that stopped you? You've never done what Lisbon has told you to." Rigsby stood up, pacing around the room in frustration.

"I've made a lot of mistakes in my life," Jane said quietly, forcing Rigsby to stop pacing and come closer to hear him. "If I'd listened to the people I cared about, the people who cared about me, even a little bit more, I wouldn't be here right now. Lisbon wouldn't be in the hospital, Grace wouldn't be missing, and my family wouldn't be dead."

He paused, seemingly waiting for something, though the lawyer didn't know what. Rigsby sat down in the chair next to him again; a quick glance at the agent's expression, and the lawyer knew that he wasn't going to fight.

"Wayne, I know Grace means a lot to you, but what you want isn't the important thing right now. What is important is why she ran away. Why she's not been in touch with anyone. She's hurting. The last thing she needs is to have you come changing into her life like a knight in shining armor set to rescue her. She needs the freedom to sort out how she's feeling. To heal."

Rigsby nodded, and the lawyer gawked at the transformation that came over the man next to him. When he'd first met him, he had been super charged and energized: chomping at the bit to reach Jane. And now he was…deflated. He shoulders where hunched in, and he looked like a smaller man. Whatever had happened—and the lawyer still wasn't sure of all the details—It had obviously affected both men very much.


	13. Chapter 13

Grace walked through the back garden of the diner. She'd fallen in love with the space in the months that she had been here. The flowers that grew were wild and tangled but unrestrained. They weren't made to conform to someone else's ideals. She'd discovered a bench in a corner under a large shade tree and had taken to sitting there for hours, looking out at the flowers. She'd purchased a notebook and spent hours writing about nothing in particular.

She'd written about her childhood: the time spent with her grandmother in her garden. Her grandmother's garden had been well kept. She'd grown roses and had spent hours pruning and weeding and fertilizing. It was the opposite of this overgrown space. She also wrote about her mother's garden. No roses there, but pansies and daisies and other small simple blooms. But it was still well-manicured and structured: pruned and planned until any whimsy that could have come from using such small happy flowers was gone.

She wrote about her sister. The happy memories of when they were girls. How they grew apart as they aged; the pain she felt over her sister's death. Why hadn't she confided in her? Why had Grace been left to wonder, like the rest of her family, why none of them had seen it coming? This speculation in turn made her wonder, had her friends and family seen _this_ coming? Had the team at work known that Craig wasn't what he seemed? Had Jane suspected something but not said anything?

And she wrote about Craig. About how she met him, and how she loved him. About the plans she had for their happy life together. And about his betrayal: about how he shown up in that cabin, pulled his gun and caused her world to come crashing down around her.

She stood in the middle of the garden now, looking at the mustard plants that were growing up between paving stones. She loved the yellow of the tiny blooms and the pale green of the stems and leaves. They made her think, oddly, of one of the first cases she'd worked at the CBI. One night, she'd been bait for Jane to catch a killer who had a thing for red heads. She'd walked through the back roads of a small resort town and, though she was petrified at the time, she remembered the trees and the smells. And the mustard in front of her reminded her so much of that time.

She walked on, passing other flowers, other bushes. She was sure that if her mother or grandmother came into this space, they would start by pulling up all of the wildflowers, all of the plants that would be called weeds in a more controlled, structured garden. But this was how she liked it.

She sat in her chair and pulled out her notebook. She started writing about the team. This was the first time she'd thought about them, really _thought_ about them. Not in conjunction with that horrible day at the cabin with Hightower and Craig, but as the people she'd known and grown close to over the past three years.

_Wayne is a sweetheart. I loved him once, but that seems so long ago. He tries to act tough, but he's really just a big teddy bear. He's good at his job, good at helping people. And he knows about fires. On our first real date we went camping. Not most people's idea of a date, but that's what we did. He lit the fire and told me all about the way that the flames would climb up the logs based on the amount of newspaper he used to kindle the spark. I'd never even thought about it before, but since then every time I see a flame, from a candle or a fire place, I think about that talk and wonder how the flame will climb, how high it will get._

_Cho is a puzzle to me. He's always so quiet, so reserved. Once I saw him out on a date. The woman he was with was young and beautiful, and Cho looked so relaxed. Different than he ever did at work. Well, there was that one time when he dressed up as a Casanova and hit on women in a bar at that spa. He looked relaxed there. It was so un-Cho like. _

_Lisbon is like a sister to me. Knowing that I caused her to be hurt is worse than the thought that I might have played a part in anything else that may have come from the disastrous Red John 'trap' that Jane had set up. She puts on a gruff prickly appearance to drive people away, but she cares about her team, and about her family. The night that Wayne and I…that I called off our relationship, she was the last person I thought I'd see. But she was there in the elevator with me, and was a shoulder to cry on when I had no one else to confide in. And she was even willing to be a bridesmaid: willing to put up with dress fittings and screaming bubble girl talk with all my friends from Iowa. I wonder what she thinks about my running away? I hope that my leaving the way I did doesn't make me weak in her eyes. _

_Patrick Jane. I can't think about him right now. I'm still mad at him. He's never cared for anyone but himself. His single minded focus on revenge was the reason I met Craig, the reason that I shot him. But I know it's not Jane's fault, not really. Sure, he was the catalyst, but I was the receiver. I was the one who let Craig in. But no longer. I will be stronger. I will be the one to say when. I will not let others walk over me._

She put down her pen, thinking. She looked up through the tree: the sky was barely visible through the thick leaves. She was picking up her pen to start writing again when she heard footsteps on the path. She arched her neck, trying to see who it was that was out in the garden and gasped. She'd not expected to see who was standing there, as if summoned from the words she had just written, and she didn't know what to say.


	14. Chapter 14

Teresa Lisbon was not used to taking it easy. She wasn't used to not going into work every day. She wasn't used to just sitting around waiting for things to happen. The team had finally—almost four months after the fatal shooting of FBI Agent Craig O'Laughlin—been cleared of any wrong doing. They had been given slaps on the wrist for the part that they had played in Jane's scheme to catch Red John and were allowed to go back to work. The only thing she was waiting for was a clearance from her doctor that she was okay to resume active duty. She'd never been shot before and hadn't known that it would take this long to heal properly. And the amount of physical therapy that she had to do was almost obscene.

So, instead of sitting around at home twiddling her thumbs or watching trashy daytime TV, she was doing the one thing that she'd instructed Rigsby, time and time again, not to do. She was looking for Grace. She was worried about the young woman. Teresa had talked to Grace's family at least twice a month since she'd gone missing and knew that Grace hadn't contacted them.

Lisbon was afraid that Grace was sitting somewhere thinking that the team was angry with her: that they were blaming her for the things that had gone wrong that day. But they weren't, at least not now. At first there had been anger; there had been blaming. Even Cho had blamed Grace a bit for the part she had played in letting O' Laughlin near the team. But in the months that she had been gone, cooler heads had prevailed; they had all realized that she was no more at fault than Angela Jane for dying and setting her husband off on a crusade to find and kill Red John.

Lisbon had done the one thing that Rigsby hadn't thought of: she'd gotten in her car and driven the bus routes that were running the night that Grace had gone missing. She'd always prided herself in knowing her team well enough to know what they would like or where they would go in an emergency and this was no exception. The first bus route that Lisbon had followed had ended in the desert wastelands that were on the other side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Southern California. While there were other bus routes that left from that terminal, Lisbon knew that Grace had not gone this way. She would not have ended up in a dessert.

The second bus route that Lisbon followed seemed to be the right one from the moment she started following it. The route led into the mountains and passed through a series of smaller and smaller towns. And then, just when Lisbon was sure she'd missed where Grace had gotten off the bus, she came to a "blink and you miss it" town that didn't have more than a bench to mark that the bus came through there at all. The town had an air about it as if it had been lost in time and that anything that was to land there would get lost as well. And Lisbon knew, just knew, that this is where Grace had come.

She parked her car around the corner of what looked like the main street and then walked back towards the bus bench. She had a feeling that Grace would be somewhere near there, though she wasn't sure why. She wondered idly if this was how Jane felt, knowing something, but not able to articulate the reasons behind it. There was a barber shop, a mom and pop diner, a few houses that had been converted into shops and what looked like a doctor's office. She stood looking around, trying to figure out where to try first, when a slender man with thinning hair came up to her.

"Hello, I'm Dr. Ryan." He said, holding his hand out. Lisbon shook it, giving the man an odd look.

"Teresa Lisbon. This seems like a friendly town."

"We don't get many visitors here, so when we do, people tend to take notice." He stood in front of her, scrutinizing. She looked away from his face, trying to decide if he was odd or merely trying to protect someone. After a minute of awkward silence he spoke again. "You should try the diner; they have the best meatloaf and chicken soup."

As he walked across the street from her towards the house that she had thought was a doctor's office, Lisbon wondered what had just happened. It had seemed almost as if the doctor was sending her on a mission. Who stopped a random stranger, stared at them and then told them to try to local cuisine? It was just odd. Maybe he could recognize, somehow, that Lisbon was looking for Grace. Maybe he was trying to tell her that she was at the diner.

Lisbon shook her head to clear it and walked into the diner. She smiled when her eyes had adjusted to the dim interior. The diner looked like somewhere she would have gone with her family when she was younger. If Grace was here, Lisbon could see why. It had an air of relaxation about it.

"Just go ahead and sit anywhere!" called a waitress from behind the counter. Lisbon smiled; the woman was everything she thought of when she thought of a greasy spoon waitress. She sat at a table near a window so she could look out over the street and looked at the menu that was tucked between a napkin dispenser and bottle of ketchup.

"What can I get for you?" The waitress asked after Lisbon had been there for a few minutes.

"I was told that the meatloaf was good, "Lisbon said looking up at the woman and noticing the name on her name tag: Raeleen. Just the type of name that you would expect a waitress to have.

"You must have seen Dr. Ryan. He does love the meatloaf. I think it's pretty good myself. Comes with mashed potatoes and carrots. That sound good?"

"Sure does." Lisbon smiled as the woman walked away. She liked this place. She liked the town. She looked out the window and thought about Grace. She hoped that the younger woman was ok and that her coming wasn't going to upset her.

She wasn't paying attention to what was going on around her and jumped when someone sat down across from her. She stared at the waitress and opened her mouth to speak when she was interrupted.

"I try to keep out of other people's business, but sometimes I can't help myself. I know why you're here. I'm sure you can guess we don't get many visitors here, and the last one to come here, before you, was a scared young woman in need of a break from reality. I've grown to care a lot for her in the last few months. I don't want to see her get hurt more than she has already." The unsaid threat hung in the air.

Without the waitress having to say, Lisbon knew she was talking about Grace. "I'm a friend," Lisbon assured her. "I care about her. I waited this long to come looking for her because I didn't want her to run even further. But I need to know that she's ok, and I need her to know that everyone at home still cares about her."

Raeleen looked at Lisbon, the same penetrating look that Dr. Ryan had given her just moments earlier. When she spoke it was with calm determination. "She's out in the garden. Go down the hall and take a left just after the bathrooms. And be gentle."

Lisbon didn't wait for her food. She got up and walked toward the hallway that Raeleen had indicated. When she stepped outside she was surprised at the state of the yard. She hadn't expected to find an award winning garden, but the amount of over growth shocked her. Even though it was overgrown she could still see a type of beauty in it. She saw a path that seemed at first glance to go around the outside of the garden and she decided to follow it, hoping that it would lead her to Grace.

She walked quietly, not wanting to disturb the serenity that was in the garden. She was just rounding a corner when she saw Grace. She was sitting in a white wrought iron chair under a large tree. Her head was bent over a book, and she was writing. Lisbon noticed the way that her hair was hanging on the side of her face and realized with a jolt that she'd cut it. It was just shorter than shoulder length and looked shaggy but well kept. Lisbon didn't want to disturb her, but just as she was backing up, Grace looked up from her writing.

"Hi, Grace." Lisbon said by way of greeting.

"Lisbon." Grace said faintly, staying in her chair, book in her hand.

"How are you doing?" Lisbon asked, taking a few steps forward.

"I'm doing ok." There was hesitation in her voice and Lisbon realized how fragile Grace still was.

"I just wanted to make sure you were ok. We're all worried about you." She paused, and when Grace didn't say anything, she kept talking, coming to crouch beside the chair so that she was eyelevel with Grace. "We don't blame you for anything that happened. _I_ don't blame you for anything that happened. I've been worried about you. I just wanted to let you know that I miss you. We all do. And that we'd like you to come back."

When Grace didn't say anything, Lisbon wasn't sure what to do. She wasn't sure if she should just leave, or keep talking. She decided to stay a bit longer.

"Jane shot a man. He says it's Red John, though we don't know that for sure yet, if we'll ever know for sure. He's been in jail since…" Lisbon wasn't sure how to qualify the length of time. Since Lisbon herself was shot? Since that disastrous day at the cabin? Nothing seemed right, so in the end she didn't say anything. "Your parents are worried. I talk to them as often as I can."

Again there was silence. Lisbon sat on a small patch of grass that was next to the chair. She crossed her legs in front of her and looked up at Grace.

"I wanted you to know that I made sure Rigsby didn't find you. He wanted to, but I figured you'd need some time. I want you to know that I don't judge you for leaving. I understand why you did it. I've been smoothing things over with Bertram. If you want to come back, there will be a place on our team for you. If you don't, I understand. Just, please know that I'll always be a friend for you, no matter what you decide."

They sat in silence for a few more minutes before Lisbon got up. "We miss you. You don't have to come back, but please, just think about calling once in a while."

As she walked out of the garden, she didn't notice Grace look up at her and smile.


	15. Chapter 15

Grace stood across the street from the building she'd spent most of her time in since she moved to California three years ago. There were so many memories present there: hope, love, fear, hatred and loathing. She almost wondered why she had come back at all. Why she was looking at it.

After Lisbon shattered her mountain sanctuary, Grace realized how much the real world had moved on while she was gone. She'd been putting off thoughts of coming back to Sacramento, back to a life she didn't know if she could handle anymore, but somehow she knew that she needed to do it. She needed to come back.

She hadn't wanted to leave. The garden had been her sanctuary, the town her salvation. The people there had welcomed her without question, without demand. She had felt safe. She hadn't needed to put on a show, put on a face so that no one would know what was wrong.

But she also knew, as she'd always known that flowers that grew in a place that was carefully sheltered were never as beautiful as those allowed to grow free. At least, she'd never thought so. And sanctuaries were not meant to be permanent, much as she might wish they were.

Lisbon's visit had given her the courage that she didn't realize she was lacking. She walked across the street to the building that she thought she'd never return to, ready to rejoin the team that had never lost faith. Ready to start over as a new woman: a woman who could stand on her own.

She pushed open the door and stepped inside.


End file.
